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Work of the People

What a wonderful time of worship we had this past Sunday! From Dinah's powerful reminder that God's promises trump our problems to the moving music led by the RENEW Praise band, from Meg's testimony about how working with our youth has impacted her own faith to Jeff's thankfulness for how God has worked in his life in the midst of difficulties, from a small child asking for prayers for an ill grandmother to laying hands on one of our own facing major surgery, there is no doubt that the Spirit was up to something bringing together so many folks in so many ways to offer true worship to our Creator and to fill all of us with the mercy and grace of our Savior.

Yet it was not just the folks we saw up front that made this powerful worship possible. Each week, there are those who set up and fine tune the sound board throughout the service, those who run the projection system, those who create, fold, and hand out the bulletins, those who pull music to be sung from the library, those who spend countless hours crocheting and praying over prayer shawls, those who turn on the heat or cooling, those who nurture our little ones in the nursery, and those who lead our children in their own worship. There are so many others who serve in so many ways - large and small. Of course, then there are also all who gather to lift up names in prayer, to sing praise for God's glory, and to offer hearts and minds in attentiveness to the Word of God. Worship is not just something where the preacher speaks and the praise band plays music for. Worship is a work of all God's people offering their gifts to God and opening their souls to be renewed and transformed by God's Spirit.

That is what we experienced at a profound level on Sunday - the work of the people of God coming together in praise! Peter, one of Jesus' main disciples and the one who went on to lead the early church, reminded us that with Jesus as our foundation we have been built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood - in short, that we have all been chosen to act as God's priests and to offer the sacrifice of praise. May we all work together through the power of the Spirit to bring God praise each week!

Blessings on the journey, Jim

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.- 1 Peter 2:4-5,9-10

Thanksliving

Thanksgiving will be here before we know it - a day in which we sit back to ponder our blessings and give thanks to God alongside our family and friends! Yet with all the ugliness and violence in the world, the stream of tragic news, and even our own daily struggles, it can be hard to stay thankful in the meantime. Over the next few weeks in worship, we are going to look at some ancient prayer of Celtic Christians along with Paul's advice to the early church for the wisdom they offer us on how to grow a thankful heart! Join us this week as we start off celebrating "The Present of Presence!"

Help Needed

We are searching for someone to join our Children's Church team as a leader on the fourth Sunday of the month. You must love children and have a passion for sharing the story of God. Curriculum for the lesson is provided, and other leaders can help you learn what works. If you are interested, please contact Becky or Pastor Jim.

Living in Community

Thanks to the RENEW Praise Band for their wonderful offering of music in this Sunday's worship service!

Thanks to Dinah for her powerful message reminding us that God promises trump our problems!

Loving Our Opponents

Last week, I shared with you words of advice that John Wesley gave to the folks of his day in the midst of an election: to vote our conscience, not to speak evil against those we do not vote for, and not let the election affect our hearts and how we see and treat those we disagree with. Many of you have told me how meaningful, helpful, and challenging these words are during this bitter and seemingly endless campaign.

As I have reflected on these words myself, I have been convicted that, as challenging as they may be at times, they truly represent the bare minimum of what we as Christians are called to do - or largely not to do. After all, beside the advice to vote our conscience, the remaining two thoughts are things we are told to avoid. While refraining from negative talk about and feelings against our opponents may go against our human instinct, this amounts merely to "Do no harm to others." If we are able to bite our tongues and do no harm, is there any good that we are called to do in this current divided culture in which we find ourselves?

Recently, I read an argument by a theologian that one of the things that distinguished Jesus' teaching is that he told us to love our enemies. In the ancient world, there had been teachers that had suggested the importance of treating enemies with kindness - to treat even our enemies as we would we like to be treated, to be just and kind towards them, to be generous towards people different from ourselves. Yet Jesus may have been the first ever to go so far as to say we should actually love our enemies. While others had advocated the goodness of being kind and just toward others, no one had ever been recorded as saying we should actually change how we feel about them, especially to go as far as loving them.

What would it mean for us to not merely show justice and kindness to our political opponents but to actually love them? How can we move beyond merely refraining from harming them to actually loving them? I believe that one way to start is to pray for them - and I mean to really pray. I am not talking about praying that God will convince our opponents to join our side but to actually ask God to bless them however God sees fit - that God would give them grace, peace, joy, and a share of the good things of this world. We do not have to want for them to win power in order to wish God's best for them. For ourselves, we can ask God to help us to show love towards them and to open our hearts to seeing them as fellow children of God again.

May God bless us and bless our opponents that we might find unity in the common ground we share!

Blessings on the journey, Jim

Walking with God

Sunday's Sermon Snippet: Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-12, 17-19Abraham and Sarah heard God's call to leave their family and home behind and to go to a new land that God would show them. God promised that they would become the parents of a great nation and that all the world would be blessed by them. This carried within it an even more amazing promise that this older couple (Abraham was already seventy-five) would have a child, a legacy, a future. So they set out and walked to this promised land, and began a new journey of faith. Eighteen hundred years later, one of their descendants remembered their story and wrote in the Letter to the Hebrews of their faith and of how our own faith in Jesus should be like theirs in God. So what is faith? To have faith is first of all to believe, but this is more than simply saying yes to certain statements about who God is. The author of this letter claims that faith is confidence in our hope and assurance of what we do not see. This means that trust is at the heart of believing in God. It is more than what we say about God and includes what do because of who we think God is. So faith is just as much about what we do as it is about what we say, because, when we believe, we obey God just as Abraham and Sarah obeyed the call to go to another land. It was not enough that they trust in God's promise of a child and a new land. They had to go where God led them. But this one act of obedience in conjunction with their trust in God was not enough either. When they came to the land, they faced famine and went on to Egypt when they faced danger from those around them. Returning to the promised land, they waited for decades for the promise of a child. When that child finally arrived and the promise seemed fulfilled, Abraham faced the test of offering his son to God. Obedience is not the end of the story. When we believe and obey, we still have to persevere through the difficult challenges of life. Faith is believing, obeying, and persevering. May we all believe, obey, and persevere on our own journeys of faith!

Operation Christmas Child

Give a special gift this Christmas, and fill a shoebox for a child in need! There are two ways you can participate in Operation Christmas Child this year. You can take a box available in the sanctuary, fill it, and return by November 13th. We will also have a Packing Party on November 6th during Sunday School; you don't need to bring anything - just come help fill the 100 boxes we have set aside.

Living in Community

Thank you to everyone who helped the youth raise $3000 for mission projects!

Thank you to Jason for leading the praise band this week!

Thank you to all of our leaders for your time and energy in preparing for charge conference! Thanks to Dianna and Meg for sharing a devotional and a witness to the power of our ministry!

Welcome to Lee Obaugh, our new administrative assistant!

Prayers of Christian sympathy to the family and friends of Virginia Miller.

We are in need of another teacher for our monthly rotation of Children's Church. ​If you are interested, please see Pastor Jim or Becky for more details.

Advice for a Difficult Election

I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.- John Wesley, founder of Methodism, from his journal on October 6, 1774

It is no secret that this year's election campaign is one of the most divisive and ugliest in recent memory if not in our lifetimes. With so many accusations flying in every direction and a fixation on things other than the issues we face, it would be easy for us to join in rhetoric or to simply give up and hope for the best in another four years. In such a time as this, it is helpful to remember the words that John Wesley recorded in his journal on an October day 242 years ago of his advice to those preparing for election day. These words may be more relevant to the Methodists of our day than they were to those he originally spoke them to. Wesley first advised that we vote according to our conscience for the one we judge most worthy of the office they seek. That part perhaps is not too challenging but the next two bits of advice may seem downright impossible for us today. Wesley further charges us to speak no evil of the ones we do not support and to be careful not to treat those who vote differently unkindly. For Wesley, this is as much about how we treat others as it is about what anger and hatred we allow to take refuge in our souls. If we succumb to the temptation to speak evil of those we do not support or to see those we disagree with in a negative light simply because of who they support, then we do harm not only to them but to ourselves. We become less the children of God (and brothers and sisters in Christ) that we are called to be. May we guard our hearts, our tongues, and our souls in the midst of all the animosity that surrounds us that on November 9th we may still be brothers and sisters with all those who follow Christ no matter what happens.

Blessings on the journey, Jim

Walking with God

Having faith in Jesus is what distinguishes us as Christians. But what does having faith mean? How are our lives different if we have faith? What do we do differently? Join us this Sunday as we "Walk with God!"

Living in Community

Congratulations to Angela on her baptism! Welcome to the family of God!

Thank you to Linda, the praise band, and our talented musicians who madeour Music Ministry Sunday a wonderful worship experience!

Thriving as a Community of Faith

Over the last few weeks, we have been reading some of Paul's advice on godly living from his first letter to Timothy. As I reflected on how God wants us to thrive in our individual lives of faith, I have considered how God wants us to thrive also as a community of faith. In many ways we do. When 200 kids and 140 adults gather for a Spirit-filled week at Vacation Bible School, we thrive. In the food, faith, and friends of Wednesday at the Port, we thrive. At our park that reflects the beauty of God's creation for our village, we thrive. In our partnership with South River School, we thrive. Alongside our youth who are passionate about being a blessing to others every day, we thrive! Through the prayer shawls that we bless for those in their time of need, we thrive. In our worship filled with powerful music and inspired by the beauty of our windows, we thrive.

Yet I wonder if we are doing all the good that God has called us to do. Are we truly thriving in our ministries as God intends for us to? What if we sent a missionary out into the world to meet people where they are and share the love of Jesus with them? What if we worked to provide clean drinking water and adequate healthcare to a village where our brothers and sisters are suffering? What if provided a scholarship to a student who needed it to get the education to follow God's call in their lives? What if we sent relief workers to work with churches in Haiti to meet the suffering and needs of a people reeling from a disastrous hurricane? Perhaps these seem too huge for us to do and too big for us to consider, but this is the good that God does through The United Methodist Church with local congregations working to do larger things than they could do on their own. Together with thousands of other congregations, we can make a difference in the world for Christ - but right now we are not making the impact that we could!

We are doing incredible good in our local community, but we lack the financial resources to fully support the work of the larger church in the world. Our conference expects us to pay a certain amount to support this work each year - what we call apportionments. Currently, we are on pace to pay just under half of what we are called to do this year. That means God's work is being left undone in the world. In addition, we have building issues here that we need to address and ministries that we feel called to grow. All this work, all this good that God is calling us to, requires more money to be given.

I have spent days and some sleepless nights worrying, thinking, and praying over this. What can we do with our ministries, our staff, our fundraising, and our priorities to make ends meet and still do good in the world. I have pored over the budget and what I find is that our finance committee has given us a faithful budget and our leaders are being fantastic stewards of our resources to do great ministry with limited resources. I have even wondered if God is calling us to do less good that is more in keeping with our current level of giving.

The only answer I get is that God is calling us to do more good rather than less! In fact, I feel it deep down in my soul that God is really to do a new and amazing thing with and through us, if only we were ready. If this is true, then there really is only one option left to us: we all need to commit to giving more if we want to be faithful in doing the good we are called to. Fortunately, because our village is large, it is not an insurmountable task with which we are faced. If each family committed to giving an average of $25 more per month, we would have enough to fund and and even our ministries.

So I ask three things of you: 1) We need to commit to supporting the good work God has called us to - whether with an extra 5, 25, or 50 dollars per month according to what we can do. 2) We need to prayerfully consider our giving for next year. Pledge forms are available at the church and online and need to be returned by October 23. 3) We need to join in praying for God to reveal the good work we need to do, especially the new good we have never even dreamt of before.

​Blessings on the journey, Jim

Thrive: Growing in Godly Living and Giving

Sunday's Sermon Snippet: ​What We Save For (1 Timothy 6:18-19)Paul concludes his first letter to Timothy with a series of short commands for him to pass along to the faithful. These commands are about how those who follow God can thrive in the faith and take hold of true life. First, do good. While this may seem obvious (and perhaps even easy) to those of us who wish to follow Jesus, this is actually a daily challenge when we remember the charge from John Wesley and our Methodist ancestors: Do all the good you can by all the means you can in all the ways you can in all the places you can at all the times you can to all the people you can as along as ever you can. To do good is a constant challenge and a calling in which we can always continue to grow. Second, be rich in good things. Just as with wealth, to be rich means to have an overwhelming amount. To be rich in good things means that each good we do is barely noticed because it is the whole of what we do that is seen and is a marvel. Third, be generous. Generosity means going above and beyond the minimum. We are called to do more good than what is required for us to feel good about ourselves or to win the admiration of others. Being generous means we do good because that is who we are through the power of God's Spirit at work within us. Fourth, share with others. Because we know that doing good requires some amount of sacrifice - money, time, energy, status, safety - sometimes we think that doing good means giving to others so that they now have what we no longer have. It is important to note, however, that Paul uses the word share rather than give. When we share what we have, we may no longer have it to ourselves but the blessing of it grows. To share with others means that God's blessings in all our lives is increased. For Paul, following these commands allows us to save up treasure as a foundation for our future. While this certainly applies to our ultimate future with God in heaven, it also speaks to our lives now. When we do good and build up the village of folks around us, we create new and stronger relationships with God and one another - a good foundation for the future. With that foundation, our lives and transformed and we begin to not just get by and survive but to thrive in our lives. As Paul says, we are able to take hold of what is truly life - being one with God and each other!

O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing

Singing praise to God is one of the most important ways that we worship, and music has a way of lifting up our souls and shaping our faith like few other things can. Join us this Sunday as we celebrate the role of music in our lives of faith with special music and a hymn sing!

Responding to Hurricane Matthew

Our United Methodist Committee on Relief is already on the ground responding to the great needs caused by Hurricane Matthew both in Haiti and here in the United States. 100% of contributions to UMCOR go to relief work (UMCOR's administrative costs are funded separately so that donations can have the greatest impact for the need to which they were given). You can donate to the cause by placing a check in the offering plate made out to PRUMC with Hurricane Relief in the memo line or by donating online (online contributions can be designated for either International or US Relief).

​Living in Community

Throughout the month, bring your food items for the Food Pantry to our Harvest Table set up in the vestibule​. Your contribution helps to feed hungry families in our community.